Visual C++ 6 Unleashed

By MICKEY WILLIAMS and David Bennett

• Table of Contents
  • Copyright
  • About the Authors
  • About the Contributors
  • Acknowledgments
  • Tell Us What You Think!
  • Introduction
  • How to Use This Book
  • What You Need to Use This Book
  • What's New in Visual C++ 6.0
  • Contacting the Main Author
  • Part I: Introduction
  • Chapter 1. The Visual C++ 6.0 Environment
  • Part II: MFC Programming
  • Chapter 2. MFC Class Library Overview
  • Chapter 3. MFC Message Handling Mechanism
  • Chapter 4. The Document View Architecture
  • Chapter 5. Creating and Using Dialog Boxes
  • Chapter 6. Working with Device Contexts and GDI Objects
  • Chapter 7. Creating and Using Property Sheets
  • Chapter 8. Working with the File System
  • Chapter 9. Using Serialization with File and Archive Objects
  • Part III: Internet Programming with MFC
  • Chapter 10. MFC and the Internet Server API (ISAPI)
  • Chapter 11. The WinInet API
  • Chapter 12. MFC HTML Support
  • Part IV: Advanced Programming Topics
  • Chapter 13. Using the Standard C++ Library
  • Chapter 14. Error Detection and Exception Handling Techniques
  • Chapter 15. Debugging and Profiling Strategies
  • Chapter 16. Multithreading
  • Chapter 17. Using Scripting and Other Tools to Automate the Visual C++ IDE
  • Part V: Database Programming
  • Chapter 18. Creating Custom AppWizards
    • How Do AppWizards Work?
    • Creating a Custom AppWizard
    • Components of a Custom AppWizard Project
    • Template Files
    • Programming Your AppWizard DLL
    • Building a Custom AppWizard
    • Debugging a Custom AppWizard
    • Summary
  • Chapter 19. Database Overview
  • Chapter 20. ODBC Programming
  • Chapter 21. MFC Database Classes
  • Chapter 22. Using OLE DB
  • Chapter 23. Programming with ADO
  • Part VI: MFC Support for COM and ActiveX
  • Chapter 24. Overview of COM and Active Technologies
  • Chapter 25. Active Documents
  • Chapter 26. Active Containers
  • Chapter 27. Active Servers
  • Chapter 28. ActiveX Controls
  • Part VII: Using the Active Template Library
  • Chapter 29. ATL Architecture
  • Chapter 30. Creating COM Objects Using ATL
  • Chapter 31. Creating ActiveX Controls Using ATL
  • Chapter 32. Using ATL to Create MTS and COM+ Components
  • Part VIII: Finishing Touches
  • Chapter 33. Adding Windows Help
  • Part IX: Appendix

How Do AppWizards Work?

Before we get into the nuts and bolts of creating your own AppWizards, let's step back and take a look at just how AppWizards work in general. Although you probably have used an AppWizard more than once, you might not know what's going on behind the scenes to create your new project.

When you start one of the Application Wizards from the Projects tab of the New File dialog box, Developer Studio calls a special dynamic link library (DLL) to handle the dialog boxes for each step of the AppWizard. Each AppWizard has its own special DLL that handles these step dialog boxes. Custom AppWizard DLLs are given the extension .AWX.

When you finish with the AppWizard step dialog boxes, the AppWizard creates the new project from a set of special template files. These template files include the framework for the source code, as well as other things, such as binary resources for your new application. The settings chosen in the step dialog boxes are used in processing the template file to create the new application files, enabling the template to be customized according to the user's selections.

You will look at this process in greater detail and how you can customize it in the following sections.

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